Wednesday 27 April 2011 11.35 EDT
First published on Wednesday 27 April 2011 11.35 EDT

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly was horrified that the secret files on Guantánamo detainees – which exposed the grim facts that many of the prisoners were held for years on little or no evidence, that many detainees attempted suicide or went on hunger strike and that the 172 detainees who are still captive may never receive a fair trial – are now on public record (view clip). He insisted to regular guest Bernard Goldberg that the person or organisation responsible for leaking the documents (which he has decided is WikiLeaks, despite the New York Times's attribution to a third party source) be tried for espionage immediately.

Goldberg tried to make the case to O'Reilly that unless WikiLeaks colluded with or actively encouraged whoever actually downloaded the secret documents, they should not be prosecuted for publishing the information – any more than the New York Times should be prosecuted. He went further to suggest that, like any other news organisation, WikiLeaks has a right and even a responsibility to make the information public. O'Reilly argued that he would never stoop so low on his news programme as to make information about what the American government is up to a matter of public record, just because the information was made available to him, particularly if it was damaging.

OK, this is an ongoing situation. The press, some of the press is seizing upon it. If I got leaked WikiLeaks documents, I wouldn't put them on air. I would tell everybody flat out I wouldn't do it. Especially if it put the USA in any kind of dangerous situation – which the Guantánamo Bay thing can whip up people easily around the world.

It is true that people get upset when they hear stories about innocent people being held for years without charge and subjected to harsh interrogation methods (or in the case of Mohammed Qahtani, leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself) while in US custody. Perhaps it was out of deference to the public's sensitivity about these issues that O'Reilly chose not to mention a single word about the documents contents and focused instead on punishing the leaker. With this in mind, he explained to Goldberg that he accepted his point about news organisations and free speech and what have you, but still thought there must be some way of bringing a charge against WikiLeaks.

I know what you're saying, but now you have, it's almost like the Rico situation you know with organised crime where they charge people with a Rico ongoing organised crime thing. You say that yourself, this [WikiLeaks] is an anti-American organisation that's looking, searching and encouraging people to come to them with stolen purloined top secret documents. I think you can get them under that Rico thing. And I think you could probably issue … Now, is Sweden going to extradite over here? I don't know whether they will or not. I think you can make a strong case that these people are practising espionage against this country.

Goldberg reiterated that he didn't think any such charge would be feasible and so ended the discussion.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity

2012 can't come fast enough for Sean Hannity who is exhilarated by the prospect of ousting President Obama in favour of a more palatable candidate who will not keep threatening to raise his taxes and who will not secondguess America's role as the world's super power (view clip). He discussed the field of GOP hopefuls with regular guest Dick Morris, who was surprisingly upbeat about the current lineup and particularly jazzed by Donald Trump's entry into the race.

I think Trump has just energised the whole election cycle and I think what people like more than anything else is that he's so hardhitting and so not politically correct. Now, there does seem to be, and you acknowledge this in your column … I think he's going to have a little bit of a problem with the base in the Republican party – conservatives. I think he's going to have to talk about protectionism. He's going to have to talk about once supporting healthcare and tax increases and once pro-choice.

Morris suggests that the base might want to consider waiving the purity test in Trump's case, because he is a billionaire, after all, and you could not ask for a better defender of the "free enterprise, economic laissez faire win system" that Morris believes has made America the great country it is.

Hannity asks Morris about the rest of his top tier of candidates, which includes Mike Huckabee ("warm and knowledgeable"), Newt Gingrich ("amazing") and Michele Bachmann ("Refreshing, intelligent and savvy"). Sadly, neither men believe that Sarah Palin will be able to run because she has had so much baggage foisted on her by the "outrageous sexist liberal media". But aside from that, Morris concludes that "it's one heck of a field."

See, I agree with you, those that have been dismissing this field to me … really, they're just all in Obama worship-land. I agree he's a weakened president and if food prices continue to rise and gas prices are rising and the economy's not getting better …

Well, you never know what might happen. But at the moment, anyway, Hannity is starting to believe that the road to 2012 may not be so rocky, after all.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck decided to take the high road this week and to put an end to the recent spat of rightwing infighting that he has found himself at the centre of (view clip). There is just too much chaos going on in the world for conservatives and Republicans to be fighting among themselves, and Beck is certainly not going to be accused by anyone of damaging the conservative cause or providing entertainment to liberals.

It's about the right-on-right infighting that's happening right now. For liberals, that's like girl-on-girl porn. It is! And the media is going to cover that whenever they can, because they think "oh look, we can show the right's falling apart".

Beck does not feel that he has wronged either party, and if he has, he certainly didn't mean to. He claims that his criticism regarding the edited version of the Shirley Sherrod NAACP speech (which falsely depicted her as a racist and got her fired from her job at the department of agriculture) was directed at the NAACP and not Breitbart. As for Mike Huckabee, who responded to Beck's insults last week by telling him to "stick to conspiracies that can't be so easily de-bunked by facts", Beck claims that just because Huckabee has done some objectionable things while he was governor of Arkansas, such as supporting a sales tax on internet goods, this does not mean that Beck meant any insult when he called him out for being a "progressive" – although Beck has equated that term in the past to being a Nazi. But if offence was taken, Beck is sorry for that – even though he is the one who is really being wronged.

It's almost like anyone who poses a threat to the establishment, somebody that calls a progressive a progressive, Lindsay Graham, and all of a sudden you're going to get a tire iron shoved into your wheels. Isn't that weird?! You're getting shot from the front and the back!

Beck realises, however, that no matter how much his fellow conservatives upset him, what unites them – the need to defeat President Obama in 2012 – will always supersede what divides them.